


Joint Study

by Elenchus



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Fluff, Gen, Sick Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 22:25:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17010357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenchus/pseuds/Elenchus
Summary: Combeferre wants to go on a journey. Joly objects. Debate ensues.





	Joint Study

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bobcatmoran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bobcatmoran/gifts).



The knock on Joly’s door was distinctive; sharp and precise and somehow imbued with a sense of purpose. If one listened closely, Joly suspected one would hear a faint choir of angels. That was an occupational hazard of friendship with Enjolras.

Enjolras was accompanied by a vaguely Combeferre-shaped pile of clothing, wrapped in blankets and scarves, which snuffled softly as it moved.

“Hello,” said Joly, “a pleasure to see you, always, would you like to come in and sit down?”

Enjolras didn’t move. “Combeferre says we must go to England.” If Joly had known him less well, he would likely have missed the faint hint of doubt in that serene countenance. To Enjolras, a wish from Combeferre was as a duty. But-

“No,” said Joly, “I don’t think so. No, indeed not.”

The Combeferre clothing pile made an indignant sound. Probably. It came out muffled through the scarves wrapped around his nose and mouth. Joly began mentally ticking off symptoms in his head. Probably just the common cold, certainly didn’t seem like cholera, though one could never be too careful, or it could be the flux, maybe scarlatina, he’d have to get Combeferre to let him check his throat, or oh, what about –

Joly shook his head and brought himself back to the subject at hand. “Why do you need to go to England?” If they were meeting an informant or making a trade someone else could be sent; if escaping danger there were temporary measures that could be taken while Combeferre recovered.

Enjolras shrugged slightly. Apparently he hadn’t asked. Combeferre made another unintelligible sound that turned into a hacking cough. Joly ran inside and fetched him a piece of paper and his new self-inking pen. He’d been wanting to show it to Combeferre anyway, not that he expected much analysis out of him at the moment.

Combeferre took the pen and paper, thought for a moment, and solemnly inscribed a single word.

TRAINS.

All was made clear. Joly understood at once. “Oh, yes, the new Rocket, over in Manchester was it? Very exciting! I hear it can travel uphill, some fascinating updates the internal engines. I’d very much like to see it myself. They say it could transform the whole countryside!”

The scarves bobbed up and down enthusiastically. Joly realized he was heading in the opposite of the intended direction. He hastily changed tack.

“But you know they’ll be there when you’re better. That is to say, almost certainly. Unless there’s another explosion, but then it wouldn’t be complete in the first place. So no point in going even then.”

Combeferre continued to hold out his piece of paper.

“No,” said Joly firmly. “You can barely stand up straight. You are not going to England.”

Combeferre turned the paper back around and, after careful thought, wrote on it again. When he turned it back, Joly saw he’d underlined the word TRAINS twice and added a large and imposing period.

“ _Bed_ ,” said Joly, attempting to mimic the same effect with his tone.

* * *

It was, perhaps, not a surprise that Joly should be less than warmly received when he called on Combeferre later that day. Joly and Enjolras had jointly cajoled, strong-armed, and bribed Combeferre into his bedroom and wrapped him in another layer of bedding. 

(Joly would miss that pen, even if it did get ink all over him every time he used it.)

Combeferre was visibly sulking. He had the covers pulled up to his chin, though when he saw Joly he extricated an arm and tossed a small book at him.

Joly knelt to pick up the book, and when he looked back up Combeferre had made a new sign: BOATS.

Joly recognized the book: a monograph by an English doctor advocating sea travel as a remedy for various aliments. An intriguing idea, though Joly had never tested it himself. He got terribly seasick – though that was supposed to be part of the cure, purgation combined with healthful sea air for a rebalancing of sanguine humors. None of the complaints treated in the book were anything like Combeferre’s, however.

“I’m not going to let you cross the channel just to see if there’s a salutary effect on a head cold,” said Joly. “No,” he added as Combeferre reached for his pen, “not even if you promise to take detailed notes.”

Combeferre sank back into his bed, sulking once again.

Joly hummed softly as he moved around Combeferre’s room tidying up some of the ever-present clutter and discreetly dropping magnets in key cardinal locations. It couldn’t hurt. He found a series of scattered papers near the bed with sketches of a train moving up a hill, with cutaways to show the imagined interior and possible configurations of the engine. He hummed a little louder in approval. Not Combeferre’s steadiest line work, but an interesting piece, and not bad for a man running a light fever.

Combeferre seemed to sense what he was thinking. BETTER WITH A MODEL, he wrote.

“No, they’re quite good,” said Joly. “And you’ll make better once you can hold a pen without shaking.”

Combeferre made a sound of distinct malcontent.

“Once you’re a bit better, perhaps we can go sketch the trains at Saint-Étienne,” said Joly, deciding not to mention his best estimates of how long “a bit better” might take. Less than it would take to be ready for a trip to England, at least.

SEEN THEM, wrote Combeferre. After some contemplation, he added: BAD, and a small frowning face.

Joly had gone with Combeferre when the Lyon-Saint-Étienne rail line was still brand new, and he knew just how delighted Combeferre had been back then. Still, he thought he could understand. He wanted to learn more about the engine upgrades too, gauge the limitations of the upward motion and speed and imagine where such lines might be built in future. “The applications could be tremendous,” he said, wistfully, not realizing he was speaking aloud until the words had left his mouth. Combeferre patted his hand, gentle despite his poor mood.

Joly shook himself out of his reverie. “Well, I’ve brought you a present.” He went to his bag and pulled out a battered brown book, almost as large as his arm. “My bookseller found me an old Latin edition of the _Canon of Medicine_. If you’re good, then tomorrow I’ll bring you the pages from the _Cure_ he sold me. I’ll even discuss that passage on the paradoxes of cosmogenesis you were so interested in the other day.” He tried a tactic that always worked on his young nephews: instead of telling them to brush out their hair, offer a choice between a red comb and a blue one. “Now, would you like me to read to you on the causes of diseases, or from the formulary?”

It worked on a sick Combeferre just as well. FORMULARY!, he wrote, apparently forgetting he was in the mood to be obstreperous.

Joly flipped to book five and read, somewhat haltingly as he transliterated the old Church Latin. He took notes as he went, jotting down possible uses for cinnamon in bringing down a fever and some speculations on where to find sample of myrrh for testing. They made it through several pages, from _Confectio hermetis_ to _Alcalchatarahan magnum_ – and whatever that was Joly would have to wait another day to find out. He and Combeferre traded notes, as they always did after such projects, to comment on and correct their thoughts together.

Instead of notes, Combeferre had sketched a cannon, loaded up with vials and scalpels and syringes and firing them into the air. The only words on the page were CANON MEDICINAE under the image. Joly laughed with delight, and Combeferre, finally, smiled.

“Does this mechanism deliver the tools of medicine to the sick,” asked Joly, “or dispose of the post-treatment waste into enemy ranks?”

Combeferre waved his arms languidly in a universal gesture of “why not both?”, then gestured to Joly to keep the drawing, arms moving ever slower. After gentle persuasion, he allowed Joly to tuck him into bed with barely any protest. 

* * *

 

Joly visited several times over the next two days, and noticed he was far from the only one. Combeferre’s bedroom had already looked like the den of a particularly eclectic magpie, and it was growing more so by the hour. His bedside table was piled with a collection of unpublished (and unpublish _able_ ) poems, newspapers in four different languages, comic sketches of various acquaintances, illegal copies of sheet music from an opera in England, varied collections of knickknacks, pressed flowers and plant cutting, and even a jar full of crickets. Joly assumed veto power of the comestible offerings; he’d had to shoo away Enjolras’ baskets full of apples after the first one. Bahorel’s chicken stock was gratefully accepted – but only after Joly had checked for…unusual herbal additions. (It wouldn’t have been the first time).

Joly was pleased to see the patient so well provided for, but he still felt a twinge of guilt when he looked at the sketches he’d picked up around the room. It wasn’t _his_ fault Combeferre had taken it into his head to travel while desperately ill, but he hated to see him disappointed. Combeferre was so good, so patient – well, except occasionally for when he wasn’t, but that was human nature – and Joly wished he had it in his power to humor him now.

He had, when he was a boy, sometimes practiced whittling as a way to pass the time with his father. He’d never been much good at it, and the years had not improved his skill any. Nevertheless, perseverance had brought him through before, and with this thought in mind he determined to see if he might, at least, make Combeferre at satisfactory model for his next series of sketches. At the very least, he might make Combeferre laugh.

As he had feared, the results were not visually impressive. He’d followed Combeferre’s sketched descriptions as best he could, fitting in whatever details he could – but the details _didn’t_ fit, that was the problem. Perhaps it couldn’t be done on an object smaller than Joly’s hand. If it could be done, Joly wasn’t the man to do it.

There was one point, however, on which he was pleased with his own success. The little wooden train could roll on its wheels. It would be a bumpy ride for the tiny imaginary passengers, but Joly had to admit he was delighted as he rolled it forward and backward. If Combeferre didn’t want this, he’d give it one of the nephews as a toy.

He only wondered…“If I could build up a little steam inside, perhaps I could make a mechanism with some paddles and string…connection to the wheels…hmmm…”

Bossuet, sitting nearby with a book, immediately got up and went to fetch a glass of water. Ten minutes later, he upended this on Joly and his train, saving Joly from worse than a singed coat cuff. The train, however, looked worse than ever. 

It was, Joly decided, time to consult some outside help.

* * *

 

“So there you have it,” Joly said to Feuilly, wrapping up his account. “I know carving isn’t your specialty, but…”

Wordlessly, Feuilly pulled something out of his coat pocket. It was a little wooden train, much like Joly’s. Joly was ready to be the first to admit that, while lacking many of his technical details, Feuilly’s train was a tiny piece of art, beautifully painted and decorated. It looked how a child might have envisioned a train, with jewel-like colors, swirling patterns, and absolutely no engineering plausibility.

Joly wanted one.

“I’d thought it could cheer him up,” said Feuilly. “Give him something to practice sketching. But then, well, I don’t know much about how it’s supposed to look. Looked at some drawings, read a few books. But I wasn’t sure I should give it if it wasn’t right. Might make his sketches wrong, then where would he be?”

“Oh, but he’d love it! It’s charming!” said Joly. “And if you’re bothered, I have some detailed sketches to get things right, and I was able to salvage the wheels off mine – we could build a miniature line, with three or four moving train cars, though not self-moving, that didn’t work very well, unless –“ Joly’s inner voice, the one that sounded rather like Bossuet, caught up with him. “Unless it would take too long, only with two of us, and me out of practice.”

“Three. Bahorel loaned me some materials, said he might make a model of his own. He’s good with knives” Feuilly didn’t add that Bahorel’s “might” was generally another man’s “would.” They both knew that Bahorel was a man of action, and also a man who owned a great many knives. Joly had personally admired his collection. If they found Bahorel, he’d have something to add to their collection, and it might even be a train.

* * *

It was a train. Sort of. 

“Wings?”

“Wings!” confirmed Bahorel, who would not be swayed by a single one of Joly’s charts on the weight of a train car and the relative difficulty of said object achieving flight given earthly conditions. 

* * *

Joly was proud of their little rail line, moving wheels and carved tracks and all, but he still felt a hint of trepidation as the three of them laid it out on Combeferre’s spare table. (That is, it had become a spare table after Joly had cleared off piles of stamps, old letters, coat buttons, and a small family of spiders. 

Combeferre’s even temper had mostly returned in the last few days, though Courfeyrac said he still gloated terribly when he beat him at chess. His voice had returned too, though he still used it sparingly. All the same, Joly could only hope that reminding him of his thwarted plans would be a balm rather than a further thorn.

Combeferre watched raptly at the models were placed on the tracks and gently pushed around, soaking in the details like they were a new book or insect specimen in front of him. “Oh,” he said.

“Did the best to get it right,” said Feuilly. “Hope it’s good enough to work with.”

“I know it isn’t quite the same, but it was the best we could think of to do. Bringing a model to you, as it were. Since you couldn’t get to the real thing just yet” said Joly.

“No,” said Combeferre, hoarsely. “It’s much better. Nothing like it in the world.” He reached out a finger and pushed the engine train (complete with careful details Joly had helped Feuilly paint on) around the track. He made a small sound of delight. “Someday, there will be hundreds of trains. Thousands. Shared by humanity and bringing us together. Beautiful. But this, this is only mine. Shared with my friends. Beautiful too. Better than England. Thank you.” He paused for a moment. “Still going though, as soon as possible.”

“Of course,” said Joly, beaming with pride.

Combeferre’s fingers lingered on the winged train car, and his fingers tapped in a way that usually meant he was doing sums in his head. “Can’t do it with iron and steel,” he mused, “but maybe, someday, something lighter…”

Joly jumped up to grab writing paper and a pen. He and Combeferre jotted down numbers while Feuilly described some of the amazing things that could be done with layered paper and Bahorel speculated happily on future commerce and trade in an economy of flight.

Joly didn’t know what the future would look like, but if it was anything like his friends imagined it would be a beautiful thing indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Bobcatmoran, I hope this is in the general neighborhood of what you had in mind. Or at very least, something you enjoy! I really meant to focus on Combeferre being excited about things, but Joly kept getting excited even harder.
> 
> **Research notes:**
> 
> The Canon of Medicine (Canon Medicinae in Latin; al-Qānūn fī al-Ṭibb in Arabic) is a medieval medical text by the Persian philosopher and doctor Ibn Sīnā (a.k.a. Avicenna in the Latin-speaking world). It was taught as a core medical text for centuries, though by the 19th century it seems to have been replaced in the common European curriculum. Still, Joly and Combeferre would likely be interested in it as a key work of medical history and it might even be assigned in some of their courses. The Cure (or The Book of Healing) is a philosophical work by Ibn Sīnā; despite the name it is not about medicine. I'm not sure whether "the cannon of medicine" is a better or worse pun in French, given that "canon" is spelled the same way in French whether it refers to the Latin name of a codified text or an artillery weapon...
> 
> The Liverpool-Manchester line opened in September 1830, and the Rocket locomotive could travel up to 36mph. Thrilling! Combeferre is trash talking the Saint-Étienne-Lyon line because he's cranky, but also because in the early days the locomotive cars had to be pulled by horses for some of the stretch, including the parts that went uphill. Plus, it didn't go nearly as fast as the Rocket.
> 
> I can't find a single reference to model trains this early in the 19th century, so I choose to believe that Joly and company are trendsetters.


End file.
